Ethical Pioneer
by MisterGray
Summary: The exploits of Hunk, silent killer extraordinare, and a loudmouth idiot. But there's a catch. There's always a catch.
1. 01

((Well, enough laziness. Time to get back to Hunkin', I reckon. I just may think he's cooler than Wesker. Anyways, we all know of Sir Hunk's endeavors during RE2, so screw that. This is after.))

The Fourth Survivor struck again. Right between the eyes, no less. And why not? He'd taken time to aim this shot. Get a steady bead between two glazed-over inky orbs. Put in the time to make this round _special_. It was worth the results without question, a smile crept over his features beneath the gas mask he wore on just about every mission to date. Gray matter spewed all over a local wall, and for once he could actually hear the wondrous splattering. His shot had made virtually no sound whatsoever, thanks entirely to his current firearm. A Steyr-AUG, an Austrian assault rifle currently serving as their army's standard to the best of his knowledge. A passive nightvision scope had been implemented to give him a hand in the darker corridors of the underground facility, and a silencer/flash suppressor had been attached to the barrel. He found this infinitely helpful, since as far as he was concerned zombies were attracted to noise. Gunshots included, although anybody that could properly use a firearm was typically more than a match for any pseudo-undead.

But it wasn't attracting zombies that he was concerned about, not in the least. It was spooking his target. This mission was different, this mission was special. This mission was ludicrous. The objective? He chuckled to himself just slightly, and couldn't help but note how cynical-sounding it came out.

"We want this one alive, Hunk." The director of the briefing had told him but several hours ago. "It's... Different than the rest. Even I've been told little about it, aside from that it's some sort of 'zombie plus' or something as such. Possibly a Tyrant variant. I haven't the slightest clue." To this Hunk had only glared icy daggers at the man sitting across the table. "Just get in there, and get out with the thing alive. We'll have proper containment equipment on the surface when you get there. After that, we'll send in a clean-up crew to mop up the remaining infected personnel."

Ah, the clean-up crews. Quick, typically efficient, and all on their way to either death or an aspiring career as a zombie. Hunk recalled the days when he was amongst their ranks, he remembered them quite fondly in fact. He was always the last survivor. He was always the best. But those days were gone, he worked alone now. Umbrella's most feared special agent, deployed alone on the most dangerous missions. Ever since he retrieved that G-virus sample, the superiors noted that Special Agent Hunk did better without support. "Let Mr. Death do it his way" seemed to be the unspoken Umbrella policy on the matter.

Either way, he and his bullpup-style rifle had racked up no more than four kills so far. He wasn't here to kill the infected left and right, and so he simply snuck past them to the best of his ability. His stealth skills were second only to his marksmanship, and it was a close second at that. He'd been given the schematics of the laboratory floor, and took the most efficient possible route to Lab 7. Minimal resistance was met along the way, and with this final zombie looming about the door out of the way, he could open it and either meet his maker or a new paycheck.

A single round dealt with the lock, and possibly alerted whatever may be within to his presence. He extended a gloved left hand towards the door, and decided to find out.


	2. 02

((Shorter chapter.))

The door was rather abruptly shoved open, and Hunk burst into the room. If he was lucky, this thing would still be in some form of gargantuan test tube, and if he were even luckier it would still be dormant. But what were the odds of that? Never very high, considering the chaos that had overrun the rest of the comparatively tiny facility. The first thing Hunk could not help but notice was that, indeed, the room was pitch black. To the degree that when the door swung shut behind him, of its own natural accord, passive nightvision was absolutely useless. It required some minor degree of light to be present, and simply amplified it exponentially- but without any light at all, this proved to be feeble.

His mind raced, and the first idea to cross the finish line was to instantly dart out his left hand across his torso to the right side of the doorway, and seek a light switch. Hunk thought that perhaps Hunk was on God's good side today, because he found one immediately. But nothing, nobody, could have prepared him for what he found.


	3. 03

((Oh-ho-ho, here we go.))

This was not a laboratory room at all. This was... This was a teenager's room. What the bloody hell was this doing here? A bed, a mountainous stack of porn magazines and DVDs in the middle of the room, ceiling fan, Frank Zappa posters on the walls, a desk, a computer chair, and the computer to go with it. What in the hell was this all about? Were the higher-ups deciding to just fuck with his head until he shot himself? Was that Umbrella's new policy for their most exceptionally talented field agent?

"Knock next time, asshole. Jesus. Ain't no common courtesy these days."

Unfortunately, Hunk could not cancel out an instinct he had spent his entire career instilling into himself. And so, when a voice came from directly above him and surprised him- in an already tense scenario no less, his first instinct was to swivel the firearm upwards and pump off a short burst. Three rounds, hastily aimed by the master shooter, found themselves a new home within the upper torso of something Hunk had not expected. At all. In the least. Not in a million years. Not even after that.

His mind didn't even know where to begin trying to understand. The creature above him was humanoid, at the very least. Two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. It was clothed, another plus. Simple garb seemed to consist of a black pair of cargo pants, slightly on the baggy side. It was the other details that threw him off slightly. For one, there wasn't a hint of especially severe mutilation or rotting. The creature gripping the flat ceiling without any visible effort was unscathed, save three new foreign objects lodged into his chest. And that was another thing that struck him: This being was obviously male, and rather young at that. He guessed somewhere in the late teens.

Furthermore, it could _talk_. The closest he had heard of, when it came to such a thing, was either the Ashford rumor or the Nemesis project. Its- rather, _his_ skin was a deep blue shade and absolutely covered in pitch black laceration scars. Perhaps most unusual yet was how the boy seemed to be grinning, after being shot three times- and that he was still alive, without even having exit wounds. The grin revealed four small extensions of canines, almost fangs but not quite. Still, they looked very sharp indeed- perhaps this one fed on living flesh, like most of the other creations.

And further up yet, Hunk could not help but note that the boy even displayed some signs of being a healthy teenager. He still had hair, of a coppery red shade no less. It seemed to be fashioned short, slightly more so than Hunk's own. Almost acceptable by most military standards. And his eyes... Well, they simply were not. Twin sockets gaped at Hunk, spilling a strange feeling of emptiness all over the room. No eyelids, no eyepatch, nothing. Just two voids.

"What in the hell was that for, dickweed?! Goddamn, that hurts like a sum'bitch!"

Hunk kept his weapon trained on the blue thing, and turned around in order to back away further into the room. It was crucial to remove himself from being directly beneath this creature, in the event that it did decide to go on the offensive. However, he realized he was being asked a question. Stopping in his tracks, Hunk could answer only with a cold shrug. Well, this was awkward.

The boy dropped into a graceful crouch, landing with a silence that was beyond the ability of a human to produce. His movement was exceptionally fluid, which made Hunk yet more suspicious. Still, he said nothing, and simply kept steady aim at the thing's face.

"Er. Dude. Lower the rifle. If I wanted to kick your ass, I'd have done so when you first came into the room. Y'know, when I was like, directly above you and ready to land on your head 'n' tear it clean off?"

Hunk failed to comply for a few seconds, before deeming that the young one had a point. Still, he said nothing in response whilst lowering the rifle- but, ever vigilant, he kept it at the ready. The blue boy stepped forth, and offered out his right hand. By this point, Hunk couldn't help but note how the three rounds were gradually being pushed out of the teen's chest. It was a slow regeneration process compared to some of the experiments he'd heard of, and that of the madman Birkin, but it was doing the job. "Anyhow, I reckon it's time for a proper introduction- even though you capped me thrice. You ass. Name's-"

Hunk had to wonder why the boy paused, and his trigger finger tensed. "Hold that thought, uh," the boy leaned forth, as if scrutinizing Hunk's tag with his lack-of-eyes. "Hunk? Yeah. Anyhow, I forgot what a loudmouth I was, and it seems I woke the dead."

And he wasn't lying. An influx of zombies, undoubtedly all of the ones in the compound, seemed to be at the door. And what a remarkably easy door it was to open. Hunk pressed the stock to his shoulder, tilted his head to align with the scope, and backed up to the wall. These things weren't going to shoot themselves, after all.


	4. 04

((A dumbass can still be a useful dumbass.))

Hunk eagerly awaited the oncoming swarm. There could only be about twenty of them, maximum, and only so many could fit through the door at once. If he acted quickly enough, he could literally make a barricade of their own fallen comrades as to hinder the rest from coming through. But what in the hell was that boy's plan? Cling to the ceiling like before? For that matter, Hunk considered the notion that perhaps they wouldn't even go after him- for some reason, they only feasted upon their own as an absolute last resort. He himself had never seen these occasions, but had heard of such things. Whether or not he was one of them, that had yet to be seen.

The boy, meanwhile, had failed to do much more than wait about for the encroaching horde to burst its way in. And that it did, two front-line zombies clad in laboratory garments being the first to re-die thanks to two well-placed rounds into their rotting faces. They stumbled into their final resting place on the floor, and the others began flooding in more rapidly than Hunk had thought they would. Still, nothing he wouldn't be able to deal with at his current rate of fire. He only hoped, however, that he wouldn't have to change magazines. That might slow the process down slightly.

He was about to fire upon the third of what now seemed like thirty, when the mission objective jumped directly in front of his line of fire. Amazingly quickly, no less, which affirmed his previous thought that the boy was certainly no zombie. Such movements would literally make them come apart at the seams. Normally, he would have no qualms with opening fire- and, as a consequence, opening the skull of anybody stupid enough to pull a move like that. However, his mission was to escort this being to the surface. Alive. ...Provided, of course, it was indeed living. He had no choice but to wait for the fool to move out of the way.

But the teenage blueskin did no such thing, instead hurling himself directly into the squirming mob. The result made Hunk instantly re-consider his ability to trust sight. Because although he did not exactly see everything that went on in the massive torrent of flailing blue limbs and decayed flesh, he most certainly acknowledged the results. The boy had already forced his way out the door, and dismembered everything in the way of him doing so. It was like watching a humanoid lawnmower in action. Hunk observed coolly, that being the only mannerism he had displayed during his entire career under Umbrella. Still, he had to note efficiency when he saw it. And when it came to the business of rending zombie masses into a literal carpet of organs, the kid had him beat.

It was a constant assault on the eardrums, of grief-stricken groans and pangs of hunger let loose on the sense of sound in moaning format mixing up with bags of meat and bone being bludgeoned by supernaturally-endowed fists until they simply collapsed. Hunk had never visited a meat packing plant, but he imagined that this would undoubtedly be what it sounded like. And with a smell none too different. Luckily, the gas mask preventing offensive odors coming from the half-dead from seeping into his nostrils. Truly that thing was a blessing.

Either way, he counted it to perhaps being seven seconds exactly before there were no more sounds of zombie resistance. The boy, now absolutely doused in bodily fluids and organic matter not his own, seemed to take up a crouch reminiscent of the typical gargoyle statue. He inspected each fragile cadaver with two empty sockets, perhaps making sure that it was indeed a finished task.

And it was the first time in several days that Hunk spoke, directly after that point. "Let's go." He stated coldly. He was here to accomplish a mission, not praise some showboating freak. With that, he kept his rifle at the ready and began towards the elevator.


	5. 05

((Through the eyes of an eye-lacking idjut.))

Another job well done, the boy had rend perhaps twenty-seven of his former colleagues and caretakers into an infected compost. Normally, that much contact with the zombies would pose the threat of infection- this much, the boy knew. He wasn't terribly aware of the various specifics and mannerisms of all of Umbrella's creations, but everybody knew _something_ about the common zombie.

Ah, but the threat of infection was only posed to those who were not already infected. Hence, he found only pride and fun in reducing this disgusting, shambling mass into a disgusting, still mass. The boy was about to celebrate with a jig, or perhaps further mutilating of the damned, when a message hit him. Apparently the Hunk fellow wished to reach the lift, then. "Eh? Elevator? What the hell for? Ain't nothing to kill in there, Sir Hunk." Such was the only reply he deemed appropriate.

He found quite quickly that the armor-clad agent was scarcely the type for lollygagging about, for he responded to the inquiry only with a glacial act of gratuitous violence. The boy chastised himself; he should've seen it coming. Literally. What unique and alien senses he had allowed the boy to see things in a slower state of motion than humans, much as the world moves slowly to a fly. And yet he still failed to avoid what was coming, for he had underestimated the speed and ferocity of the other. The composite stock of Hunk's rifle pushed the air aside effortlessly, driven by a powerful right arm pushing in the most efficient possible manner to bludgeon somebody from behind. Which, apparently, was the exact purpose of such a movement.

And so although he felt the rifle bashing into the back of his skull, the boy really could not do terribly much about it at that point. He wasn't nearly as trained in the fine arts of close-quarters combat as most, having been essentially relying on brute strength and ludicrous reflexes since the transformation. Suchly, the thought of moving his neck forth to roll with the impact failed to occur to the boy. All went white for a moment.

By the time his senses had re-activated themselves, the boy couldn't help but notice that he was on the floor. Yet at the same time, and not of his own accord, he was moving. Ah! Well, he was being dragged across the mess he had just created. Well then. That rather explained things. Undoubtedly they were going in the direction of the elevator, as he did recall the chap had mentioned something about getting there.

Well, free ride's a free ride. No sense getting to one's own feet and actually walking if a surly agent of an evil corporation intends on dragging you about, right? Right. Although the back of his head hurt, which the boy proceeded to voice. "Ow. Nice one. I, uh, didn't see it coming." A slight pause ensued. "Get it? That's a pun, Jack. I ain't got no eyes. You're supposed to laugh, or lovingly chastise me for doing such a stupid joke." An even longer pause ensued, as Hunk failed to regard or care about the idle ramblings of an idiot. "You'd suck in a buddy cop movie. You know that, right? Anyhow, ain'tcha gonna ask me all about what I am and such? Most of the scientist folks who visit the facility are curious about that one. Dig it."

And yet no reply. Damn it all, this guy was a greasy fucking iceberg. Smooth as hell and twice as cold. Ah well. At least there was a big day of being questioned by Umbrella interrogators and scientists up ahead. Or was it night? He honestly hadn't the slightest idea. Well, into the elevator. "Right-ho, ground floor please, bellboy."

Some cosmic sense told him that further pestering of this Hunk guy would warrant being shot in the head. And three or four good headshots, that would most definitely kill him. A temporary silence policy went into place.


	6. 06

((Again, with the idjut.))

Well, if one thing was to be learned from this hard day or night, whichever it was, it would have to be that every goddamn lab he'd lived in ended up having this problem at one point or another. I mean, really. These guys were just plain getting lazy. And this time, he had no idea what became of Dr. Klein. She always managed to avoid the outbreaks, through a combination of good luck or advance knowledge as far as he was concerned. He'd had a number of long discussions with Dr. Klein, all of them rotating around a few key subjects. Namely himself, Umbrella, and matters of practicality. He could associate with the good doctor fairly well, since it was she who came in every day to check up on the boy. It was she who transformed the boy, as well. The boy's recollection brought up one memory in particular as the elevator neared the surface.

"Jon, I'd like to have a word with you, if you don't mind." The doc had said in her usual voice, in a rather alluring manner no less- the sound of a somewhat sultry lilt had always managed to catch his attention, so he could never find the ability to ignore her. "Eh? Um. Yeah, sure, what's up doc?" It was just easier to call her that. Worked for him on a number of levels, it did. Short, easily pronounced, and a constant reminder of how Warner Brothers cartoons didn't always suck. That, and if it weren't for the fact that he was more of the pet in the relationship, he might go so far as to call it a pet name. Either way, she paced back and forth across his room, eyes carefully averting themselves from his stack of porn from beneath rectangular spectacles with her clipboard pressed to her bosom with one hand, and a pen in the other.

"When I arrived at the psychiatric ward, what exactly drove you to accept my offer?" Another story in and of itself, but to cut things down he had taken up the chance to be included in an Umbrella Corporation 'internship' for 'gifted' people. He had later found out that both his genetic structure and mind were considered, in certain ways, exceptional. The former had certain compatibilities that few others possessed, the latter had something similar on the mental scale. Either way, he gave the question about five seconds of feigned deep thought. "Well ma'am, you were extremely hot for an older chick." A true statement, Dr. Klein was a hot commodity on the dating scene. Gifted with raven locks nothing short of magnificent down past her shoulders, a lovely pale complexion which brought up a wondrous contrast, ravishing brown eyes that were always giving people mixed signals; and in the boy's own words, "it don't hurt that she's got ass, neither."

Most people seemed puzzled when he gave answers like that, but Dr. Klein was used to such things. Any of the days when she wasn't sent in to speak with him, or when somebody was sent in her stead to jot down any data on the boy, was promptly given a mock-British "Feck off!" in the most loud and obnoxious tone he could muster up. She was, indeed, one of the few people he liked. "I... See. Okay then." Granted, she wasn't puzzled, but nobody ever said she wasn't damn close to it. Jon was a hard guy to get used to for most.

"All right, my turn to ask." Something had been on his mind for quite some time, after all. "Why the fuck is it me that's sentient? For that matter, what the fuck is the point of creating armies of half-dead idiots? _What_ in the hell is the practical purpose? There ain't no profit! What the shit kinda suck-ass company-"And it truly is amazing how a loud, somewhat embittered teenage male voice can manage to be silenced by a gentle "Jon. Calm down." To which the boy could only nod, and nibble at his lower lip with an idle canine. Although they were slightly sharper, and so he had deemed those four teeth in particular 'fanglets'. A suiting term. "I completely agree with you, the zombies are an impractical weapon. Ozwell Spencer, the man who began the company, found that they were self-propelled creatures with the potential to spread the infection to others at a 90 success rate. But only in massive numbers are they effective, and any mass outbreak could never be contained as an effective weapon."

She paused, looked pensive for a moment, and then continued. "But that's why I turned you into what you are. You can be different. Not a weapon, but an improvement on humanity itself. You can still think exactly as you did before the infection, but have a vastly improved genetic structure. Best of all, you can clean up the zombies with utmost efficiency." Which was true, such was almost why he was designed. A counter-action against other Umbrella creations, of which he knew surprisingly little. All the boy knew was that although he could consume human flesh, he much more enjoyed eating the carrion provided by his own zombie kin. Coincidence? Not a chance in hell. Infected flesh tasted far superior, and made him feel more vitalized.

Ah, Doc Klein. He wondered if maybe she'd be up at the surface.

Ah, the surface! Speak of the devil. For such a long recollection, he was caught off-guard that only a few seconds had passed. Such was the way of the slow-motion state he saw the world in. "Showtime, old bean. Smile for the cameras. I'd stand up to greet the press, but I'm afraid I might stand up too much- I was thinking about Dr. Klein, if you catch my drift. Eh, eh?" A familiar 'ding' sounded, and the doors began to slide apart.

Hunk, meanwhile, could only hope that an order was given to execute this walking pestilence within the next five seconds. Just being near him drained one's dignity.


	7. 07

Hunk deftly snapped to attention in his curt, militaristic fashion upon the doors of the elevator sliding open. The surroundings had changed little since he arrived, a detail of soldiers pointing assault rifles at the elevator in case anything leaked out, and the entire hangar bay awash in blinding floodlights. Teams of back-up personnel and scientists stood by; the latter tampering with machinery, the former with firearms. All this was quite new to Jon McRinehart however, who was used to a small detail of casual sentries on his infrequent surface visits and nothing more.

All guns registered a bead on McRinehart's sitting form, and Hunk was promptly greeted by one of the higher-ups. More likely a representative thereof, the real shot-callers had very little time to soil their hands with anything less than business or politics. And, from what he'd heard, a few of them were indeed promising politicians. Hunk, ever the man of business, spoke only a few words. "Target subdued, objective complete. Underground lab is safe for de-contamination." Which, in the Umbrella lexicon, meant the utter destruction of any living or once-living thing down below now that anything of value was out of the way.

All non-protected personnel backed away for a moment, as a group of men in armored hazardous material suits trudged over and hosed the duo down with a decontaminant. Although the virus was not known to be airborne, taking risks that utterly stupid was not within the capacity of most of Umbrella's staff. Better safe than zombie. Jon always detested this part, the stuff burnt his skin since a few strains of the virus were embedded into his DNA. Minor burns at most, but still enough to remind him of what real pain felt like all over his form. Not as damaging to him as fire, the all-cleanser, but certainly a pain in the ass.

Hunk stepped out of the elevator to immediately remove himself from the presence of the now-quiet boy, and watch from afar while tuning out the various babble of the science personnel. If he had gone through some lengths to capture a specimen, a _live_ (arguably) specimen, he certainly wished to know for what reason. What strange purpose could this creature fill? His most immediate guess was something along the lines of an anti-zombie Tyrant, judging from the zombie clean-up demonstration he had seen not three minutes ago.

McRinehart, meanwhile, simply sat still and managed to lose himself in a whirlpool of self-induced depression, and the thought that he would have to end up slaughtering everybody he knew for one reason pertaining to the T-virus or another. As well, he knew that the corporates and warmongers among Umbrella's diverse staff of miscreants would eventually suspect Dr. Klein of something, and probably have her killed accordingly. For all he knew, each one of these laboratory outbreak incidents was a failed attempt at doing so. He knew the company had a ruthless policy on such things, but to what extent was beyond the capacity of a select few to understand. He was not among that select few, and although he never cared one way or another concerning his own existence, the boy could only hope that the doctor never was.

Prodded upright by tonfa-like batons configured to release a minor electrical discharge upon physical contact, the boy simply remained silent. He was always one to talk back, but only in the right situations. This, for example, was not among them. They would only beat him down like a beast, incapacitate him with a few well-placed blows to the head, and have him shipped elsewhere in a sturdy metallic box. Not worth sass-talking somebody. That, and such a thing required a higher mood than his current one. All the thought of Dr. Klein and various horrid fates had been a real downer.


End file.
